The Impact of Intertextuality in Movies on Language Learning

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of using intertextuality in second language learning through movies. Two types of materials were prepared: first, the American animated movie <i>Shrek 2</i> (Adamson et al., 2004) was the primary material, and second, idioms from YouTube shorts were used as points of comparison for regular expressions found in <i>Shrek 2</i>. This case study involved five college students majoring in non-English subjects. Among them, one was at an intermediate level in English and four were at a low-intermediate level. After three months of participation, students underwent five tests: three language tests and two open-ended-question tests. The first three assessed recognition, salience, and memory. The results of the recognition and salience tests indicated that participants achieved perfect scores in regular expressions, thanks to intertextuality. The results of the memory test showed that idioms were remembered significantly better than regular expressions. However, this test suggested that intertextuality played a larger role in semantic contexts than in syntactic ones. In the first open-ended-question test, the participants successfully described both an original character and a new character in <i>Shrek 2</i>. The final question revealed that most participants appreciated two aspects of intertextuality: creative work and long-term memory gains.